Core Harvester

CORE HARVESTER

The CORE HARVESTER was designed to remove the large amount of labour that was required to collect the cores , after they had been removed from the ground.

The work was normally done by a team of four men, shovelling the cores into a trailer with shovels made from plywood The Harvester was manufactured from mild steel, and is semi mounted on the three point linkage at the back of a compact tractor and can be operated directly behind the tractor or offset to the right hand side.

Power was obtained through the tractors hydraulic system via a spool valve, a hydraulic motor connected via a Duplex chain which in turn drove a rubber flighted conveyor belt To start harvesting, the tractor would line up with a pre-made row of cores, the operator would adjust the three point linkage handle to lower the machine to the working height, he would then turn on the spool valve and start to drive forward. The flighted conveyor belt running in a clockwise direction would start to lift the cores up into the skip.

When the skip was full the operator would turn off the conveyor and lift the three point linkage to clear the ground level With the skip full the operator can transport the cores away from the area he was harvesting, The operator has the choice of either tipping the cores into a trailer or onto the floor, To start to tip the skip the operator would change a valve mounted on the side of the harvester, then using the same spool valve on the tractor he could raise the skip.

This worked in two stages, the first stage is for the skip to tip back away from the elevator, the second stage was to raise the skip up and tip out all the cores.